Money Trauma:

Healing Lineages of Struggle

 Welcome to a course that I have been nurturing for over ten years (or maybe my entire time on this earth).

I grew up the eldest daughter of undocumented immigrants from Nicaragua who fled the social, economic, and political ramifications of colonization and US imperialism. They started from nothing in the US as undocumented laborers. They were both exploited by people and by systems. 

My inheritance has been carrying the weight of financial stress, scarcity, and the burden of generational money trauma for my lineage.

What is Money Trauma?

Money trauma is the emotional and psychological wounds we carry surrounding money, often rooted in ancestral experiences, family inheritance and dynamics, past experiences, and societal influences and oppression.

This is how it often manifests for me:

• I save too much

• I prepare for the worst

• I worry that I will lose it all and that my family’s sacrifices will be in vain

• Navigating institutions activates my childhood wounding and I feel very small

For first-generation individuals, those moving from scarcity to abundance, navigating finances can be particularly challenging:

• our families and our communities may still be struggling due to systemic oppression

• we experience shame and the guilt for succeeding and leaving people behind

• our nervous system has to be re-wired to move in trust

• we have few models on how to live in abundance and as liberated beings

This can keep us stuck in a cycle of scarcity mindset, fear, and limiting beliefs around money.

Entrepreneurship:

As I was navigating my scarcity inheritance, I went to college, graduated, got a job in non-profits, went back to graduate school, graduated and worked community mental health. I suffered mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually along this journey.

With great fear, I jumped ship. I reclaimed my autonomy and started my own private practice where I navigated my inheritance and how it now manifested in my business. I was a “bad boss” to myself, and I learned all the ways that I had internalized the patterns of “exploitation” and “oppression.”  

For first-generation entrepreneurs, the struggle is even more intense. Our families and communities have worked so hard for stability and playing it safe seems like the right move. Imposter syndrome preys on our insecurities and our fears and keeps us small. Fear of failure is paralyzing. Fear of success is immobilizing. And it is easier to be a “bad boss” to ourselves than to be a kind and generous one.  

In terms of my practice this is how my money trauma tends to show up:

• I often work too much

• I worry that success is temporary and that these opportunities will run out

• I react to criticism as if it were life or death

• I crash and burn  

This is my/our colonial inheritance:

• navigating chronic not enoughness and limited thinking

• saying no to ourselves and yes to others

• dimming our creativity for what is logical and rational

• producing when our heart, body, soul wants rest

Your Liberation:

Healing our inheritance of struggle is not just possible, but it is our birthright. We come from abundant ancestors, collectives, lands, medicines, and tradition. Everything we need to reclaim is hidden there for safe keeping, right below the surface. We have everything that we need to thrive.   

This course is a holistic approach to healing money trauma. Together we will explore the core mental, emotional and spiritual wounds that we carry. We will bear witness and acknowledge the impact that these have had on our lives, experiences, and world-views. We will unravel the patterns that keep us stuck in survival and imagine what thriving will look like. We will create new abundant futures for ourselves and our descendants.

You Will Receive:

• Clarity: De-mystify your colonial inheritance and relationship with money

• Alignment: Lay the groundwork for a life that is rooted in your contribution, your values and ethics

• Healing: Heal wholistically, backwards and forwards

You Will Release:

• Limiting beliefs that helped you survive but will not support your thriving

• Beliefs about being undeserving or unworthy; an imposter

• Patterns of making yourself small to accommodate others

• Perfectionism and fear of failure

You Will Be Held By Your Collective:

I invite you to a collective gathering for people that identify as first generation (those moving from surviving to thriving) to integrate and process our ancestral, intergenerational and current relationship with money. Collectively we will navigate scarcity, reclaim abundance and define for ourselves what it means to thrive in mind, heart, body, spirit. 

Your Investment:

In my mind and heart and spirit I know that we come from a lineage of great wealth. A long line of entrepreneurs, survivors and resistors, who made something out of nothing. People who saved seeds and planted beautiful gardens for their descendants.

I know that you are: Abundant. Resourced. Overflowing.  

I encourage you to challenge your small talk, your fear-based thinking, your scarcity and sign up for a new way of being.

Money Trauma: Healing Lineages of Struggle is open for registration.

Register now for $499; (CEUS sponsored by WSSCSW).

Contact me directly regarding a sliding scale option.  

 Course Details:

 Virtual session for community members wanting to heal their money trauma:

Friday May 17th 10 AM – 4 PM

Virtual session for entrepreneurs: This gathering will specifically address how money trauma shows up in our businesses

Friday May 24th 10 AM – 4 PM

This course is for you if you identify as first generation, you are moving from survival to thriving, and your ancestors have experienced the various manifestations of colonization and oppression.

This course is not for you if you have not experienced distress about finances, you have not internalized legacies of struggle and survival and you are not the descendant of those who were/are colonized and oppressed.  

I am looking forward to abundantly learning, healing money and being in community with you.